Gloomy about a leptospirosis recovery
Ameatworker had to overcome depression after catching the disease leptospirosis. Eric Mishefski said he worked with only sheep at a meat plant when he got the disease but because little was known about leptospirosis in sheep, he never received compensation from ACC.
He contracted the disease in 1983 when there was little information available on its effects.
‘‘ACC denied me cover,’’ he told 200 delegates at the International Leptospirosis Society Conference at Palmerston North. ‘‘They said there was no evidence leptospirosis was contracted by sheep.’’
Mishefski said he was lucky to have a good support person around him because ‘‘you are depressed, and just couldn’t care less.’’
He said a support person was a necessity for anyone suffering from leptospirosis.
Mischefski was in recovery for two years and has since become the meatworkers union ‘‘de facto representative for leptospirosis.’’
‘‘How do you get leptospirosis in a meatworks? That’s what I am concerned about. Sheep were under stress in the yards and truck and peed on each other. Infected urine might not just be in the kidneys, but all over the wool.’’
Massey University leptospirosis researcher and associate professor, Jackie Benschop , said leptospirosis was an issue for many countries with more than a million people getting the disease, and almost 60,000 dying each year.
Benschop said Massey University research on the disease was carried out in New Zealand and overseas.
‘‘We have had international projects in Nepal, Sri Lanka, and Uruguay.
‘‘Overseas you tend to see a more severe form of the disease and often it is after a flood and carried by rodents.’’
She said most of the New Zealand cases were connected with livestock but they were starting to see more incidents from floods and disease from rodents.
‘‘Some lepto is so beautifully adapted to live with in some animals’ kidneys, that they have no affect on those animals. An example would be hardjobovis [a type of leptospirosis] in dairy cattle. When cattle get that infection you are very unlikely to notice it at all.’’
She said when she went through vet school more than 30 years ago, pomona was considered he pig strain and hardjbovis the cattle strain, but well grown cattle and sheep were found with pomona infection now.
Benschop said dairy cows were vaccinated to keep people safe.
‘‘But a meat worker can see 1300 lambs go past each day, or 400 cattle and they’re at risk. And farmers can still get sick, if they are shearing, assisting in calving, anything where they could get urine contamination.’’
She said there was a strain called tarassovi which did not have a vaccine.
Benschop said it had always been in New Zealand, but they were seeing more data to show dairy farmers were coming down with this strain of leptospirosis.
She said a concern was there were 91 cases in the first half of this year - triple previous numbers.
‘‘And the worrying thing is 18 per cent, are females and an increased number [36 per cent] are outside the traditional high risk occupations.’’
She said more people were being hospitalised, which might suggest the disease was getting more severe and was being recognised later.
Among the delegates were four from Africa at the international conference for the first time.